On Friday, 28th September, a number of club members made their way to Hurstville, to give 12th Street Yard its second outing under DCC.

Fran and I took the scenic route via the Barton Highway and Yass to collect Stephe’s rotary DCC controllers, so as to enable a greater degree of control of the switching yards. After a pleasant cup of tea at Stephe’s, we had planned to meet up with the remainder of the advance/setting up party, but when we contacted Michael Schumacher (AKA Robin) we discovered that he and his passengers (Graham, Mark and Ron) were about 90 minutes in front of us, so we gave up any idea of a reunion. Instead we made our way via Appin, Waterfall and Heathcote to check in to the Sutherland Motel, which was our accommodation for the weekend.

With this critical task accomplished, Fran and I arrived at Hurstville at about 3.30 pm, just in time to turn the power on to the layout, as all the heavy work of unloading, transporting into the hall (stairs are a problem at this venue), and assembly had been completed. (A very good ruse - must remember it for next time). Luckily for Graham et al, Bret had arrived an hour earlier to be a part of the assembly team.

Those staying at the motel convoyed back to Sutherland, only to discover that the correct right hand turn to get us to our lodgings was the previous intersection to that chosen, which meant traveling south for a further 10 or so kilometres before we were able to make an appropriate U-turn. After the guys got squared away we dined on a gourmet feast of fish’n’chips, potato cakes, chicko rolls and beer.

Saturday morning saw us back at Hurstville at about 7.30 where we were joined by those who had arranged separate accommodation - Bret, Dave, Rob. A few final repairs and maintenance, then it was doors open to the public. In they ran, straight towards us, then straight past us to the Austrains stall that had a “water damaged special” on locomotives.

12th Street Yard lived up to its usual exhibition performance standards. I cannot recall any problems. Despite our relatively low numbers, we managed to display a good variety of mainline consists. In part we had Geoff and Mal to thank for this. Although Geoff was unable to attend, he generously loaned us a couple of his consists, as did Mal even though he didn’t get there until Monday. DCC provided for more flexibility in the switching yards. In particular, in addition to having more than one loco operating in the “inner yard”, we also honed our operating skills by having interchange with main line consists. It’s very satisfying to have a mainline loco depositing a consist into the “inner yard” whilst there is another loco fussing around close by.

Overall, the quality of the exhibition was of a very high standard - a good mix of prototype and scale. There were a few familiar layouts, but also a number that we hadn’t seen before. Two Canadian layouts, which were new to me, were particularly well received, their scenery being quite spectacular - the river and rocks on one of them being as good as I (albeit in my limited experience) have ever seen. However, I have my own particular bias and I found it difficult to go past the 17 or so metres of the “O” Scale layout, “Stringybark Creek”. Under prior arrangement with the owners I had brought some rolling stock to exhibit, so it was of particular interest for me to see these wagons make their way around the layout.

As well as Austrains there was a plentiful array of traders, although it didn’t appear that any of our running team melted their plastic, even our noted “shopaholic” seemed strangely constrained.

At the conclusion of the Saturday session I had the stress of leading the group back to the motel. This time I came through with flying colours and we all celebrated with a couple beers and a feed at the local RSL. The motel was fairly comfortable, but suffered from its position of being on the Pacific Highway. It was our third choice, the other motels in the area being booked out with workers who had come from all over Australia to overhaul the machinery of the Kurnell oil refinery. I had trouble sleeping on Friday night with all the road noise, but strangely enough, Saturday night presented no problem.

Back into it on Sunday, with the knowledge that four of the team (the Robin group) would be returning to Canberra at the conclusion of that day’s running. As they were leaving I politely asked if they were coming back to assist with the packing up. Their reply is unprintable.

The remaining five of us had some misgivings about who was coming to join us on Monday, but we shouldn’t have worried, as no sooner the doors opened on Monday morning, in walked Mary and Neville, with enough consists to replace Robin’s. Mal and Ross arrived later in the morning and we wasted no time in putting them to work.

Public attendance seemed very good, an observation confirmed by several traders, who all indicated that they had done well. Although Saturday attendance was the biggest, it didn’t seem to drop off by any marked degree on the remaining days. On the contrary, Sunday “family day” saw 12th Street Yard attracting crowds, three and four people deep.

The exhibition once again, had its characters. Ian (AKA Mr Sticky) of Simply Glues dressed up each day for the occasion and was his usual picture of sartorial (or should that be “satirical”) elegance.

All in all, a very pleasant weekend, the only negative aspect occurring during pack up. As we were dismantling Mal went off to attach the SBT to his vehicle, only to discover that some fine citizen had seen the need for Mal’s tow ball. Luckily we had a spare – as you do – therefore, apart from the cost and inconvenience to Mal, it wasn’t the disaster it could have been. (Thanks Nifty for the loan – Mal)

The return journey was uneventful. Mal kept his speed under mach one and we all managed to keep up. After a pleasant meal at Truck Stop 31, we all went our separate ways. Mal had arranged to drop 12th Street Yard off at Stephe’s with the remainder returning via the Federal Highway. So ended an enjoyable but tiring long weekend. It took all the energy that I could muster on Tuesday morning to take Fran to work.

by Brian Thomas
Photos by Robin Foster